RAHBAR [Persian - Guide for Travellers to Isfahan ]

Isfahan: Isfahan Union Press. Very Good+. 1933. First Edition Thus. Hardcover. 48 pages; This guide printed in Perisan contains extracts from the much longer work AL-ISFAHAN ( OCLC 974487611) with some added new material. Binding is half leather over marbled boards (19cm X 13.5cm) with pale blue endpapers, enclosing the pamphlet (16.5 c. X 10 cm) with original printed pink wrappers bound in. Mounted title label on front board. Two stamps on front endpapaers: Library of Congress duplicate release stamp and ex-libris "Myron Bement and Katharine Dennis Smith." Text in Persian; Title translated to English on second page in pencil. From the collection of Myron Bement Smith and his wife Katharine Dennis Smith with their distinctive personal stamp inside front board. Myron Smith [1897-1970] was a classical archaeologist, architect, and art historian whose devotion to Islamic art and culture eventually led the Smiths to gather (or create) approximately 87,000 archival items. In youth, he worked as an architectural draftsman. After serving in the US Army Medical Corps in France during World War I, he continued as a architectural draftsman while pursuing studies at Yale University from 1922 to 1926. When Smith returned from Italy, where he studied on a Guggenheim Foundation Grant, he became a registered architect in New York. In April 1930, Smith was appointed Secretary of the newly created American Institute for Persian Art and Archaeology founded by Arthur Upham Pope and located in New York City. Without prior experience in Islamic art or architecture, Myron Smith arranged an independent study course at Harvard University on Persian Art and subsequently studied Persian language at Columbia University. In 1933, he obtained a research fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies to study Iranian Islamic architecture. Smith left for Iran in 1933 accompanied by his new wife Katharine Dennis. They suffered a terrible motor vehicle accident in Iraq en route. The Smiths eventually arrived in Isfahan, Iran -- following a lengthy recuperation in Lebanon and Cyprus. Finally in Iran, they established their "Expedition House," as Smith called it, in a rented faculty house at Stuart College. Smith's research entailed meticulous photographic documentation of Islamic monuments and architectural sketches and drawings of many. He concentrated on the Isfahan area, but also documented monuments elsewhere in Iran. Smith outfitted his station wagon as a combination camper and research vehicle in which he and his staff traveled widely. Myron Bement Smith's photographs and notes are the most systematic American documentation of Isfahan’s restoration projects. Between 1935 and 1937, Smith photographed all of the monuments considered in the Salnamah, and annotated his prints with large index cards recording the name of the building, its location, and the date of his photograph. Some even included the identity of the craftsman working on the restoration. Smith’s original photographs are in excellent condition, preserved in the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. By the fall of 1937, the tiled surfaces of Isfahan’s three main Safavid religious monuments—Madrasa Chahar Bagh, Masjid-i Shaykh Lutfallah, and Masjid-i Shah—had been restored to their former resplendence. The Smiths left Iran in 1937. Myron Smith had a long relationship with the Library of Congress where he served terms as an Honorary Consultant between 1938 and 1970; with a stint as Chief of the Iranian Section at the Library from 1943 to 1944. Smith published several articles relating to the Islamic monuments of Iran, but his major focus from 1938 onward was building the extraordinary archive of material on Islamic art and architecture most of which resides in the Myron Bement Smith Collection in the National Museum of Asian Art Archives of the Smithsonian Institution. Isfahan is a city in central Iran, south of Tehran and is the capital of Esfahan Province. The Persians call it "Nesf-e-Jahan", meaning "Half The World". Due to its beautiful hand-painted tiling and magnificent public square, it is considered to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world. An ancient town and capital of Persia from 1598 to 1722, it was long noted for its fine carpets and silver filigree. Some of the many fabulous sights in Isfahan include Imam Mosque, Sheikh Lotf Allah Mosque, Hakim Mosque, Masjed-e Jamé of Isfahan, Ali Qapu (The Royal Palace), Talar Ashraf, Hasht Behesht (The Palace of Eight Paradises), Chehel Sotoun (The Palace of forty columns), Pol-e Shahrestan (The Shahrestan Bridge), Vank Cathedral (The Church of the Saintly Sisters), Atashgah - a Zoroastrian fire temple, Buqe'h-ye Ibn-Sina (Avicenna's Dome), etc. .